Atlantic Highlands – With a stunning 65 percent of GOP registered voters in the borough turning out Tuesday, Councilman Jack Archibald easily won the Republican nomination for Mayor in the November election, beating Councilman Lou Fligor by an almost 2 to 1 margin. The official vote count gave Archibald 325 votes to Fligor’s 173.
Archibald now faces Democrat Rhonda “Randi” LeGrice in the November election. Facing no opposition in the primary, LeGrice garnered 73 votes of the 75 cast by Democrats. Incumbent Democratic Councilmen Roy Dellosso and Robert Sutton, also unopposed in the primary, each polled 76 votes. France Karras and Jim Strauss, also unopposed as GOP candidates for the council seats, polled 355 and 350 votes respectively.
Fligor, together with incumbent Mayor Fred Rast, who was not seeking re-election and was supporting Fligor for the position, appeared at Archibald’s headquarters only minutes after the final tallies were in to congratulate Archibald on his victory, with Archibald telling Fligor “You were a tough opponent.”
Both Archibald and Fligor expressed surprise at the turnout for Archibald, with Archibald saying only that “working hard gets results. I have an excellent team both who worked on the election and in my running mates in November. My thanks and appreciation to the voters for their vote of confidence.”
Fligor conceded he had no idea why he lost what most had considered was going to be a very tight election, adding, “I ran a good race, I ran a positive campaign and I took the high road; I will never change from that, and I will always continue to take the high road.”
Archibald told Fligor and Rast, as well as the supporters in the GOP headquarters on First Avenue right after the results came in, “We have to get everybody back together; we’re all friends, and friends have to get back together.”
Fligor concurred, saying “Jack’s right, the party has to work together, Fred’s (Rast) been a great mayor and the mayor runs the town with the council members.”
Archibald told the Two River Times that one lesson he has learned from the election, and the three months of campaigning he did knocking on doors throughout the borough’s four districts, is “we have to communicate with our residents. We have to listen to them.”
Both Fligor and Rast told the Two River Times “we’ll continue to support the Republican party” in spite of the primary contest which pitted the Regular Republican line with Archibald at the top against Fligor, running without the support of the majority of the local GOP County Committee.
– By Muriel J. Smith
This article was updated with final voting results from the Monmouth County Board of Elections.
Related: Lost Power and Disruption in Atlantic Highlands Primary
